Big quake in japan

[billt]

Fox News is now reporting that 3 reactors are in full meltdown. This is going to be a mess of unprecedented magnitude.  Bill T.

[PegLeg45]

Fox News is now reporting that 3 reactors are in full meltdown. This is going to be a mess of unprecedented magnitude.  Bill T.

If it ain't, it'll do until a mess gets here.

Prayer for those folks and all involved.

[sledgemeister]

Fox News is now reporting that 3 reactors are in full meltdown. This is going to be a mess of unprecedented magnitude.  Bill T.

some info

o At 11:01AM on March 14, an explosion occurred at Fukushima
Daiichi Unit 3 reactor damaging the roof of the secondary
containment building. Caused by the interaction of hydrogen
and oxygen vapor, in a fashion to Unit 1 reactor, the
explosion *did not damage the primary containment vessel* or
the reactor core.
o As of 12:38AM (JST) on March 15, the injection of seawater
has been suspended.
* Fukushima Daini Unit 1 reactor
o As of 1:24AM on March 14, TEPCO commenced the cooling
process after the pumping system was restored.
o At 10:15AM on March 14, TEPCO confirmed that the average
water temperature held constant below 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
* Fukushima Daini Unit 2 reactor
o At 7:13AM on March 14, TEPCO commenced the cooling process.
o As of 3:52PM on March 14, the cooling function was restored
and the core temperature was stabilized below 212 degrees
Fahrenheit.
* Fukushima Daini Unit 3 reactor
o As of 12:15PM on March 13, reactor has been cooled down and
stabilized.
* Fukushima Daini Unit 4 reactor__
o At 3:42PM on March 14, cooling of the reactor commenced,
with TEPCO engineers working to achieve cold shutdown.

more info here http://mitnse.com/

[kmitch200]

Fox reported tonight that the core containment vessels have held in Japan.
These were not built like the russkies Chernobyl plant that are built without a containment structure for the core.

The report I saw said that the seawater being pumped in is not good for the reactor, (I imagine due to corrosion), but was engineered in as a last resort backup.

Of course, we have to rely on some 'don't blame it on me' lying sons a bitches for the latest status report, much like the 3 mile island disaster.....

[tombogan03884]

I have to totally agree. While the japs design is somewhat better than the Russians, they don't build containment facilities anywhere near strong enough to insure safety considering the conditions that exist in that country. They also did not have a fresh water back up cooling system. Redundancy in systems is the key to safety in aircraft, as well as nuclear power. The japs cut too many corners and simply did not have enough. The result will be another mess the world will be required to pay the price for. Much like New Orleans, Japan has been operating on borrowed time. It looks as if that time has just run out.  Bill T.

Apparently they did.
Sounds like they have a lot of crap to clean up but for all intents and purposes the emergency portion is over.

[Sponsor]

[billt]

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110315-red-alert-radiation-rising-and-heading-south-japan?utm_source=redalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110315&utm_content=readmore&elq=b7e8610023bd4d389c095afb9e5b4e5b

Somehow I don't think this is anywhere near over.   Bill T.

[billt]

http://www.foxnews.com/

And it just keeps getting worse.  Bill T.

[kmitch200]

All the reports have been sketchy. Apparently nobody is voluteering to walk into the reactor and see the damage first hand.
K iodide running low...bye bye thyroid.

We won't know the truth for some time and it won't be pretty. 

[tombogan03884]

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/03/15/fuel-rod-fire/

Fuel rod fire?

While I was asleep, there was a new and unhappy event at Fukushima Daiichi: stored spent fuel rods apparently caught fire. At least right now, this is considerably more exciting than the actual reactor problems. Here’s what the IAEA says:

    As reported earlier, a 400 millisieverts (mSv) per hour radiation dose observed at Fukushima Daiichi occurred between units 3 and 4. This is a high dose-level value, but it is a local value at a single location and at a certain point in time. The IAEA continues to confirm the evolution and value of this dose rate. It should be noted that because of this detected value, non-indispensible staff was evacuated from the plant, in line with the Emergency Response Plan, and that the population around the plant is already evacuated.

As they say, that’s in one nasty spot in the plant, and unlike most of the radiation panic, this really is a kind of nasty dose. In the US, we more commonly do dose rates in “rem” — Roentgen Equivalent Man — and one rem is roughly 1/100 Sievert. So this is 40 rem/hr, and that’s not a neighborhood you want to be in a long time. 50 rem is about where you start seeing observable radiation changes, 100 rem in a short time will actually make you sick.

That being said, the dose rate at the gate they report is this:

    At 00:00 UTC on 15 March a dose rate of 11.9 millisieverts (mSv) per hour was observed. Six hours later, at 06:00 UTC on 15 March a dose rate of 0.6 millisieverts (mSv) per hour was observed.

That’s 1.2 rem/hr, going down to 0.06 rem/hr.

The frustrating part about writing on this stuff is that people don’t seem to have any middle setting between “everything is fine” and “run in circles scream and shout”. So saying “no, it’s not Chernobyl” is interpreted as “it’s nothing.”

So let’s go ahead and make this clear: no, it’s still not Chernobyl. But no, it’s not nothing.
Posted at 8:03 am on March 15th, 2011 by

[billt]

The frustrating part about writing on this stuff is that people don’t seem to have any middle setting between “everything is fine” and “run in circles scream and shout”. So saying “no, it’s not Chernobyl” is interpreted as “it’s nothing. It’s still not Chernobyl. But no, it’s not nothing.

The reporting on this stinks at best. One minute it's not so bad, the next it's head for the hills! This is long way from over. Tokyo reported a 6.0 this morning. That in itself would have made the headlines a week ago.  Bill T.